In Which the Movies Destroy Our Nation's Capital

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A lot aboutOlympus Has Fallen, the thriller starring Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, and Morgan Freeman, coming out March 22, seems familiar. Some of it hilariously so, like Aaron Eckhart's use of stock government-thriller dialogue: "Get me the Pentagon on the line now!" "The United States of America doesn't negotiate with terrorists." But the trailer lavishes more attention on the tried-and-true Roland Emmerich Method of Demolishing Really Important Stuff. In particular, the White House and the Washington Monument, both favorite targets of fictional destruction, take a severe beating.

Tim Burton had a lot more fun destroying the Washington Monument in the satirical Mars Attacks! (remember the zapped peace dove?). That was in the Clinton '90s, so blowing up Washington and parodying government seemed like appropriate children's entertainment.

As time has gone on, of course, these depictions have become more realistic. And presumably the point is that seeing unshakeable symbols of our nation go to waste is deeply upsetting. But in reality, these buildings have been crumbling all along. As not so long ago as 1948, the White House was deemed uninhabitable, literally on the brink of collapse. Truman stayed elsewhere and it was rebuilt from the inside out, leaving only the exterior.

In 2011, a real earthquake left cracks in the Washington Monument (ah, Emmerich the prophet), which is still being repaired with a donation from a billionaire. In the above video, pieces of the walls can be seen raining down on visitors. Emmerich and others might aim for realism, but their spectacle pales next to the shock and detail of the real thing.

Maybe the problem is that 2012 and Olympus Has Fallen take themselves a little too seriously. For my money, the most criminally underused Washington structure in the movies is the Lincoln Memorial, which presents itself to so many crazier opportunities. In Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian, the memorial comes to life and helps Ben Stiller fight his enemies, but that doesn't even begin to explore the possibility of aliens hijacking the memorial from within and turning it into a massive Transformer-like vehicular weapon. Or simply a Lincoln Memorial superhero powered by the spirit of the former president, carrying out American liberty wherever he goes. When it comes to degrading our national monuments, we're losing our imagination.